well it's really in dollars for months because you know anybody if you're an american investor you can put money in brazil and you get eleven percent interest rate what is that what is the incentive to invest in the united states when you can go to south america one of the world one of the largest countries in the world with a booming economy and you'll make a bundle even if you base it was asia times correspondent pepe escobar and that is going to do it for now for more on the stories we covered at r.t. dot com slash usa have a great night. time arriving here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture.

we'll. bring you the latest in science and technology from the realms. of the future covered. more news today harlem says once again flared up. these are the images the world

has been seeing from the streets of canada. trying to look for a shelter on the day. take. a long way and welcome to crossfire crime futile about just how exceptional american exceptionalism goes to the very foundation of how most americans see their country's history and place in the world is there any truth to this worldview or is it just a myth. discussed in meaning of american exceptionalism i'm joined by david merkel in copenhagen is a former deputy assistant secretary of state and the administration of george w.

bush in oxford we go to godfrey hard to and from oxford university and author of the myth of american exceptionalism and in new york we cross to peter shock he is a professor at yale law school and coeditor of understanding america the anatomy of an exceptional nation and another member of our cross talk team yelena hunger all right gentlemen crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want since you wrote a book on it i think go to godfrey first in oxford you are world wide open out there if it's a myth why is that a myth well first of all a myth does not mean that everything about it is untrue it is an idea or a story which is partially true and one of the things i say in times in the book is that it's not a good thing to believe things which are not wholly true now that basically two parts to my thesis one is that historically that people in the united states of

exaggeration of how different they are on the outside how exceptional to well history the history of the united states and many many important ways has been part of a larger movement. larger ideas the protestant reformation the enlightenment all kinds of political and legal ideas which came from your but also such great historical movements as the competition between the british and french and in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries industrialization the true revolution all of these things so the present united states somehow created only american events and ideas such as massachusetts. or frederick jackson turns out if you're the frontier seems to me to be distorting history that's the one idea the second idea which is probably more controversial is the idea that somehow since the end of the cold war american exceptionalism become more nationalistic more

aggressive and more of a problem for the rest of the world well if i go to you peter i mean a lot of people say american exceptionalism is a problem from americans also i mean how do you reflect about what godfrey just said because he basically did deflates it or it diminishes they did is that america is just an extension of a european experience in many different ways though you could say they go republican ideas came to the fore there but in the other ways are americans exaggerating who they are and what they are. well i don't know you know it's very much a matter of degree no sensible person would imagine that the american culture began in seven hundred seventy six and didn't have important roots and in europe of course at that. the question really is whether the united states has developed a culture and a political system an economic system that is sufficiently different from european

countries in particular in some other countries as well. that we could think of it . as very distinctive characteristics of a of a society and i think that's undoubtedly true there are a number of respects in which we differ very decidedly from from europe to use the most obvious comparison first is that we are a very. as societies go we are very. attractive to immigrants and we generally receive immigrants in a very in a very dynamic way and in very large numbers and that has shaped almost everything else about our society ok well savingly demographically we're very different than europe we have a growing population part of that is because of immigration but a part of it's also because americans tend to be much more optimistic than europeans are and believe in the future in ways that europeans don't thirdly

there's a very strong as a religious kind of character and says we just kind of exaggerate the truth is that i do that how do you know how optimistic europeans think it's they think. well we have servant we have survey evidence we have survey evidence that suggests that people's attitudes toward the future towards their ability to control their destinies are very different in europe and the united states and the institutions tend to reflect that now again these are matters of degree i'm not suggesting that everybody said. that's characteristic that the society in general tends to be much more future oriented and what's more confident about what will happen in the future here than you did you do your research before the great recession because i see a lot of depression among europeans and americans if i go to you david you know i'm going to pick on you here i mean a lot of people say american foreign policy and it doesn't matter if it's a democrat or as a republican if it's bush or it's obama it's exceptionalism and it's

a very negative mean exceptionalism the good even goes as far as what people say is in korea was them americans think they're better than everyone else and they know the future better than everyone else and they know what's better for everyone else i mean that that's in and it was mentioned by godfrey earlier that a lot of people say this exceptionalism really got magnified i don't even out of control but after the end of the cold war because of the only being the only superpower in the world. well i think that i think the united states has been a positive force for mankind and i think that the world with the united states in a leadership role is a world that's moving in the direction of greater prosperity and greater freedom for people now that does not mean that the united states hasn't made mistakes mistakes and it does not mean the united states should should go it alone but clearly there are countries that exhibit leadership there are countries that exhibit a desire to join consensus in their countries and leaders who seem to want to

frustrate consensus so i think that the u.s. foreign policy while not perfect has really been a very positive force and has been quite distinct from other you know leadership leading leading countries in the twentieth century ok first century you know but i mean peter a lot of people would say is that you know the united states will join in organisations that it's. its purpose is. protocol is one of them not joining the international criminal court i mean this is a exceptionalism in a negative way in the eyes of many people in the world where the united states if it can't control the game it won't play. i say that's true the united states does calculate its national self interest in deciding what to do and what not to do i think every state does that and it's probably it's probably a universal characteristic of political systems and in terms of kioto in the international criminal court you have to assess each of those positions on their

merits there are very strong reasons why the united states resisted the kyoto protocol and there are strong reasons why the u.s. has declined to join the criminal court one could disagree with those and you know that's a legitimate argument but they were guided by in writing self-interest i think is. it is in do what it will ok but i mean this is what's here this is what's so interesting there's always a game of go ahead go ahead jump in i started a fight you can continue it go here you go to god for going to sleep it is what so this is i i agree with what peter said this is what's so interesting is that when the united states gets behind something or or builds consensus who are a common good that common good is also in our national interests so when we oppose something out of national interest reasons it kind of makes people think that all we're about is our national interest i think that what's different is that is that

there is a a mix of idealism and reality all take on our foreign policy that in many ways but not exclusively in many ways is uniquely american and has as set us up in a perfect situation since since world war one to really build consensus around greater freedom and greater prosperity ok and that means invading countries without a u.n. resolution also i godfrey go ahead ahead go. well i'm i'm not in the business of saying that the united states has not done many positive things i think the united states for example is a great role in the defeat of nazi germany and we can all be very sad but i'll give you a very good example i was on a radio discussion as it happened a while ago when i made the point that while the united states played a very important part in defeating nazi germany to the british empire which most americans violent violently disapproved of and so to the soviet union which even

more americans disagreed with the american academic talking just simply thought i was talking nonsense he was completely new idea to that that the great britain or the soviet union played any role in fighting not. that's what i mean by except that i think you should tax the united states for every stupid thing that an academic says we say well stupid things i mean i think it's ok. well i think a very good point exactly has to err he's being very good point because you don't know how policy is formed i mean godfrey brings up an excellent point here i mean the number how many people actually know the role in the united states the role of the soviet union in the second world war and if they did they would understand how russia is feels about its neighborhood in nato expansion it would explain a lot of things russia's act behavior would seem so much more rational if americans actually knew history that's very important i'm sorry david you were getting there

just on the do you think. american are as much about history as possible all right i think that i think. and. let me just say one thing about american foreign policy which is that it is it is infused with david said with a kind of idealism and more hourly which certainly isn't. alone it's that is to say that it's self-interest is its dominant but it does define self-interest in moralistic ways and that can lead to great tragedies and mistakes as well as great ventures and triumphs ok david before we go to the break ok another example all right i think going to david go ahead real quick charlie go to the bradley yeah i'm talking about woodrow wilson in nineteen eighteen nineteen nineteen woodrow wilson could not open his mouth without saying that the united states alone had no selfish

interests in the war. in theory it should be ok because the united states of the greatest interest of all which is that of emerging from the war as a rich is seen as powerful nation in the world all right gentlemen i'm going to jump in here after a short break we'll continue our discussion on american exceptionalism stay with arctic. wealthy british style. is not on.

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free. free. free. old free blog deal for your media. c.e.o. don carty dot com. welcome back across town you know all about remind you we're talking about american exceptionalism today. ok. but before it would seem that russians think about the u.s. american ism that is an all ideology morning revolution there being of the u.s.

exceptionalism implies the country is qualitatively different from other nations but is this concept viable today where the us don't run on the decline and other countries on the rise as well should americans were think that exceptionalism the russian public opinion research and the good citizens attitude towards the united states fifty nine percent of the respondents said they have positive feelings and another twenty seven feel negative and that's for many the question remains whether any country should think of itself as exceptional. ok david i'd like to go to you but and i'd like to everyone keep a thought in mind as david because they would tell you when you got a three pointer i think was mandel and albright said the united states stands taller so we can see farther that is a very arrogant statement is not taken very well around the world so go ahead david . someone from her diminutive said. i'd like to i'd like to go to to godfrey's

point about woodrow wilson the united states it was a result of world war two one of the united states came out as a pretty predominant power but it was not wilson campaigned about keeping neutral there was a huge debate united states we weren't prepared and it was a tragic result of the ravages of world war one on europe that the united states did come out as a more dominant power relative to the destruction of europe after world war one but look what happened after world war one look what happened after world war two the united states' role in rebuilding other countries other former enemies was specific and peter i think i think obviously we should all learn more about history but i would say that that policymakers in the united states who thought about the importance of protecting the sovereignty of russia's neighbors who thought about the importance of nato enlargement knew well the massive contribution of the

citizens of the soviet union during world war two and knew well of the ravages that stalin brought on russia's neighbors afterwards and i think that those two things made the importance of what president bush and clinton and george w. bush talked about as far as a importance of a europe whole free and it peace and the exciting thing the third point the exciting thing about about the united states not having a sort of a distance between its leadership and other countries is all these other countries are rising up to have a stronger voice and to take a greater responsibility because i do think united states is exceptional it has a big role to play in the united states and with that comes a great responsibility ok godfrey i mean i guess i'd like to jump in here we're going to go ahead. in addition. ok in addition to the examples of world war one and world war two in the post. recoveries facilitated by the united states you also have. mentioned the e.u.

is also a project that benefited a lot i think from from american policy and then finally there's the world trading regime which is a very important institution for living together disparate. societies and economies and the u.s. played a leading role in all of those except obviously for the e.u. which. played a facilitative certainly certainly did. so that's one thing the second thing is that the fact that a statement is arrogant. that it causes negative reactions around the world does not mean it is false. and said in a different way in the west and the west. you know assertive or aggressive way but it doesn't mean that it's false. the third thing to say is that let me jump in here a bit. if i can just say something about woodrow wilson i mean which are wilson

said in the speech in philadelphia if there is such a thing as being too proud to fight it was not too proud to attack mexico twice. and in fact he did get involved in the run but what he did do was to suggest that the rest of the world must adopt and there can ideas in detail even when they were country to the interests of other people but that is a core of those ideas that they were what were those ideas they were personal freedom they were they were well yeah there's a bit here we go you know we have to invade countries to make them free oh my goodness you know i'm really prince you know the people of iraq you know they don't all agree with that statement i wouldn't trust a competent poll coming from their afghanistan as well ok so i mean i don't i mean how can we still say these kind of you know a statement like that is because of the end of the cold war in the arrogance of exceptionalism i david have americans. foreign policy is blinded by this exceptionalism and gives rise to

a many people around the world to this day i mean here we are you know it's still nothing's off the table let's go to war against iran i mean this constant thunder of you know go to war go to war it's all because we're such an exceptional people that we know the truth of the world it's ridiculous it's dishonest i know that's not true i had i was you know he's not even when he was it was. well you know i think my hope a situation is that i think it's important not to believe things that are not wholly true it is not the case that woodrow wilson offered to bring personal freedom to the world there were two principles two principles if you like ideological principles and the fourteen points one was the one purely an ancient issue. of american self interest which was so-called freedom of the seas which was a way of undermining specifically british advantages and the other was open covenants open me arrived at which i think most people now are entirely in favor of

but it was not about bringing personal freedom for the people so that was little to an extent. i'm sure i got three if you can find a university there in oxford i would suggest that you dig up the fourteen points i would suggest that you try and look at all the woodrow wilson's names and i got a part of it and here what i think is important to me i've got the forty was every now book about. the town and that. really was if i wasn't working for her year old days how dare you suggest i would go by the fourteen points without having with them because well he's it's you know it's american exceptionalism that's right peter and in new york i had. i think it's not very useful to get hung up on speeches that were made by a president a hundred years ago the question is the war on the long arc of history and in the long arc of history america has been a very. very important force for good in the world with lots of mistakes along the

way lots of tragedies that we have helped to create but on the on balance i think it's impossible to make the case that we have not been a very important force for progressive ideals all right let's change gears for you guys because i'm not saying anything of the kind if you read my book because i read the fourteen points if you read my book you'll find i did my way again and again and again the list than any many ways in which the united states had a positive effect i'm just saying that many things are believed but they're not wholly true all right gentlemen let's kind of change here so if you want to make one more point in four implies i'd like to look internally go ahead david that's the test what i think what i think we could we could agree upon is there has been there has been points where the united states has built great consensus and move things forward by by example and i think what is the frustration is that there

is coming across the idea of too much lecturing saying the way a country another country should behave without people seeing the united states behave in such such a way i think that's what godfrey is getting to so there's definitely a examples of where the united states has made mistake mistakes and where the national interest was probably contrary to to a particular country's interest but i think as paul in new york new york said i think the united states has been a force a positive force in mankind and i think that we can do a lot to enhance our own image as living by that example. and trying to build greater consensus where countries that that are are contrary to that consensus stand out more than when i could have any consensus on this program here gentlemen i to change gears a little bit here. exceptionalism yes united states is exceptional because of its prison inmate population is quite exceptional death penalty not too many how

countries in the world have that exceptionally bad health care maybe that will change social inequality public education none of these things are particularly proud beacons in american society right now if you compared to other countries i go to peter on the out there i mean all the things that we used to be so proud of in the united states there are a lot of them are lagging and blocking very badly. i would agree with that. and i would say as as we say in our book that excessive exceptionalism has two sides of the coin there are some very bad ways in which we are exceptional as well as many good ways so i would not contest that at all what i would say is that the united states is unusually. it's usually strong in its self-criticism. for all the arrogance it may be perceived abroad the united states the mescal is a very very self-critical people and so that the the process sees the political

process is for remedying these ills are very very robust ok got three hundred remain i totally agree that i just like to mention a very young american story and copy to go with it which is an enormous enormous theater shows that in many many parameters the united states now achieved lies not at the top or the bottom but somewhere in the middle between developing countries and that's if you like a concrete way of suggesting my thesis which is not the never these bad about you know it's good god no but it is the united states is a country like others in many ways very stronger than many in many ways a better place for people to live in than some but it is not exceptional. to give you the last word there i would say in some respects it is exceptional particularly with regard to which religious characteristics its attitudes toward immigration it's suspicion of a centralized power those are those are unusual if not unique creatures in the

western in the western political tradition as institutionalized today for freedom of the german here david we've run out of time thank you for a very interesting discussion many thanks to my guest today in copenhagen you york in oxford and thanks to our viewers for watching us you darkie see you next time and remember. sisters. of the.

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